Roses background

Everyone has a story, but if the short course of a novel, you just can't fit everything, so what do I include, what do I just leave to the reader's imagination? Isn't that one of the big questions almost every writer poses to themself?



In the LOTR trillogy, Tolkien gives you bits of pieces of elven and human history, he gives songs, reasons for wars, reasons why this person feels this way, and so on... In one way it makes the story come alive and it helps explain to people that don't have a clue what a dwarf or elf is why the elves and dwarves are. I remember when I was reading the book for the first time, I wondered, "Is this a novel or a musical?" I really had to struggle through the first book, but once through that book, the background information really make the rest of the trillogy come alive and also gave needed information about the remainder of the series. I started another book, one of the few books I've ever simply given up on, and I literally was having to look something up in the glossary every couple sentances. I mean, it's one thing to have to figure out a word by looking at how the word is used, but with that novel, they went straight into the politics and power struggles of this person vs. that person, and their titles and heirarchy which was NOTHING like normal fuedal heirarchy... expanding your vocabulary is good, but a book where that much of the vocabulary has to be researched before getting what the author means isn't pleasurable reading for me. Then again, I don't want to mock my reader's intelligence by writing the story at a 4th grade level, but putting adult content in the book, like other series I've read a couple of books for. The balance I seek is to write a book for a common adult, somewhere in between 20 and 30. I don't want the book to be dumbed down, yet I don't want to have to have a glossary to define all of the terms I use. I want to be descriptive and imaginative and full of interesting thoughts and ideas, but not overly so, so that you about lose the plot in the description.

Roses developments

OK, so I've got to come up with something for my characters to get started on their grand adventure. Monsters comming and killing everything (or the adventurer's families) is too overdone. Ie. In the name of the king, Wheel of Time series, and I could probably name a couple more if I checked through my books. I've also thought about an evil cleric kidnapping one of the group, but if he's strong enough to fake being a good cleric, wouldn't he be too strong for the group to defeat? Unless of course they were severely lucky, and almost literally caught him with his preverbial pants around his ankles. I've got to find a reason why these guys would be equipped with at least basic arms and armor. Even farmboys or country folk would have a bow or sling and would know how to use it, but armor? I sincerely doubt anyone in Rosenford would have a suit of armor, unless someone happened to make armor, and then why would 4 kids not expecting to go into battle get any of it? If I was heading out on a long trip, I would be more worried about supplies that armor or a weapon (other than a basic hunting implement, and eating knife). AND once I do get these guys outfitted, what will be their foe? I can't make the enemy too good, because these untrained (for the most part) smucks will get their butts handed to them on a platter. Like I said in an earlier post, I'm thinking about these guys' adventuring not really starting until they reach this artisan colony that they're going to for their journeymanship. There, the town gaurd is under manned, and they earn some extra cash by doing guard duty for the town. I'm thinking that this community is a smallish walled town, but many residents don't live actually inside the wall. Alot of the artists here prefer seculsion of a small cabin away from others. The community has a small population of about 100 or so that live in the walls. There's a large market held a couple days a week and the population swells greatly on that day. While the young'uns are on gaurd duty, they are provided with armor, and they are given some basic training. There's also a sorcerer's tower nearby where the sorceress trains, and the cleric trains with the guards, but she also spends alot of time in the forrest communing with nature. Now, the next step, is what is going to happen next. Something attacks the community? That's for another post.

True self?

Have you ever looked at people when they didn't know you were looking? It's almost like it's a window into their mind. A lady in the car behind me at a stop light has such a sour face, it looked like she was just dreading what ever lay ahead in her day. Her lips were pursed, she was having to squint because of the sun, even with her sunglasses. But I just got an immediate feeling that she just absolutely dreaded going where ever she was going. I've also caught people with just a very slight shade of a smile of their face, while they're going about doing something. It's not a job they very particularly enjoy doing, but there is just a hint of a grin and a lil sparkle in their eye. In that case, I think that they are thinking about someone they love. It's almost impossible to tell if it's a lover, or a friend, or a family member, but the basic feeling comes through loud and clear. If I can only express this in my writings as to enhance the mood of the person instead of just making it seem wordy and excessive.

Here's a go at it in context to my story.

Jarei set about making a small campfire while Rocyn set up the tent. She took a short, sideways glance at Roc while getting the twigs and tender for the fire. Gods, he is such a good looking fellow. As she struck the flint and the spark flew into the tender, she had a tiny grin on her face. The spark died quickly the first strike, so she stuck the flint against her dagger again, and this time the flame firmly started consuming the tender. She set the twigs she had gathered over the tiny flames and they soon were caught up in the fire as well. Rocyn glanced over a Jarei to see how the campfire was going, and was witness to a beautiful sight. Jarei was a pretty girl, but now with the firelight dancing in her eyes, and just a slight smile was upon her lips, she was beautiful.

Roses of the Dawn - plot line outline

It's been ages since I've written anything it seems. I've got to get back into the habit of writing something, ANYTHING when I get a few minutes. Without practice, I'm never going to get better at telling the stories that pop into my head. Well, here are some ideas for my premire novel ( I hope someday).

The kids are in the small town. I'll give basic information about them, they've known each other all of their lives. They're kind of the graduating class of the town, just on the verge of obtaining adulthood status. But first, they must go on their journeymanship. This exposes them to life outside of their hometown, it allows them to visit anywhere they desire to go, if they wish to spend the time getting there. This generally allows the teens to broaden the gene pool per se of the town's population, because the kids quite often find their mates while out on this journey. Some of the famlies in town have made quite a show of their kids journey, by buying them new horses, new clothes, arranging the child to go to exotic locales, or furnishing everything (most of the time without the rest of the town's knowledge) and not forcing the child to live in "the real world" for a while. But these kids are generally middle class. Some of their parents are marginally better off than others, but it doesn't really matter. They are going out on their own, and they are going to further their knowledge of their trades and become better members of the community upon their return.

They head off, but the journey isn't quite as smooth as they first expect. The town that they reside in first is an artist's colony of sorts and the town starts to get hit with seemingly random attacks. The attackers steal food and provisions mostly, but they also make off with any precious metals and gemstones they can get as well. It's really hit the town hard, but their few gaurds simply are not enough to protect the town. They reach out to the younger residents and plead for assistance. They will be trained in the basics of defense, they just have to basically help with gaurd duty so that the local guards can get some rest. Well, at this point, the 4 that have just arrived are the most promising candidates out of the elidgeable candidates for guard duty. Most of the colony's residents are either elderly, or infirm, or simply whimpy. The group sees that this is just simply one of the responsibilities of being part of the community, so they accept the training. They aren't alone by any means, but compared to the rest, they are probably promoted thru the ranks fairly quickly.

The group is asked to go out on a scouting mission, to see if they can find more about what is going on and what the raiders are truely after. The group sets off. With the help of the ranger's tracking abilities, they find a cold but clear trail. They trek into the wilderness into parts rarely entered by the humans anyway. They stumble across a large encampment of a varitey of monsters. They learn a little, but mainly because of stupidity, they are caught and a fight ensues. They manage somehow to come out alive, and they return with dire news. The group they found was but a small part of the army that was forming in the mountains.

Now, here's one of the spots where I'm stuck. What happens next? Do they go back and dare try to get more information? Do they go tell the local lord? Do they go to the king? Do they try to raise an army of locals to defend the village? What do they do, and how do they do it? I've been thinking about possibly using a variation of something that the game group I used to be with did. They came across a very large village of gobins, lead by hobgoblins. The encampment was in a seculeded valley with outposts about 15 minutes travel along the road, outside of the larger inner encampment. We manage to lure some of the gobbies away from one of the outposts, and when out of sight, the group took them out. Then, we sneaked up on the remaining gobbies, and made em look like porcupines. That group was almost 100% elven, and had a several of the nature loving classes in the group. Later, we combined some sneaky manuevers to set fire to a main command hut in the center of the larger compound, and was able to create alot of chaos, and slaughtered MANY foes, and scared a good many of the others away with the vast array of elven archers and mages (there were only 6 of us, but between spells, and other things, we about doubled our numbers within sight of the camp).

Well, I'm getting tired. I'll write more about this after I've had a chance to think about the possibilites some more. Oh, and one last thing I want to mention. I finally bought a domain for a website! Now, I've just got to build the site and publish it once I pay for the site hosting that is. LOL. Maybe by the time someone else reads this, I might actually have something up, so what the hey... the site name is www.carolinadragon.com . I'm going to put some of my game world notes on there, as well as some of my drawings, thoughts and writings about D&D stuff. I'm basically going to have that site as a point of reference for all of my D&D related writings, game ideas, and maybe even published adventures? I don't know... we shall see. I have alot of work to do. One of which, is if I plan on even thinking of writing for WoTC, I'll need to get the 4.0 books. I looked on Amazon, and the set starts at about 65 for the pre-order. SO... do I write for what I know? or for what is popular? I'd kind of like to continue writing for the die hards that like 3.0 like my group, but if so, chances of actually getting the modules or story published are small, but whatever. I would like to expand my knowledge of 4.0 and maybe eventually get paid for doing something I like. Wouldn't that be fun?